Insights into gun control

I am writing this article to shed some light on the debate of gun control. While the idea of tighter gun laws and regulations or even total ban on firearms sounds like a good incentive toward gun crime dropping, it is ultimately ineffective. The media is not afraid to show young adults and teenagers banding together in demand of gun control. Propaganda is being spouted all over social media, internet, and television.

It’s running on false narratives.

Mouthpieces for the media always use examples like the United Kingdom’s Firearms Amendment No. 2 passed in 1997 showed a decrease in gun crime.

Unfortunately, violent crime rose, so far as my research shows. Two studies – a 2007 British Journal of Criminology study and a 2008 University of Melbourne study – concluded that Australia’s temporary gun ban had no effect on the gun homicide rate. Crime Research Prevention Center president John Lott had similar findings.

“Prior to 1996, there was already a clear downward [trend] in firearm homicides, and this pattern continued after the buyback,” wrote Lott. “It is hence difficult to link the decline to the buyback.”

“Again, as with suicides, both non-firearm and firearm homicides fell by similar amounts,” Lott continued. “In fact, the trend in non-firearms homicides shows a much larger decline between the pre- and post-buyback periods. This suggests that crime has been falling for other reasons. Note that the change in homicides doesn’t follow the change in gun ownership – there is no increase in homicides as gun ownership gradually increased.”

In Britain’s case, the Crime Research Prevention Center found that after the gun ban was implemented, there was initially a severe increase in the homicide rate, followed by a gradual decline once Britain beefed up its police force. However, there has only been one year where the homicide rate was lower than it was pre-ban:

Additionally, there was an 89 percent spike in gun crime from 1998/1999 to 2008/2009, all of which occurred after the gun ban.

A closer look at the actual facts show that the left’s favorite examples of Britain and Australia are actually examples of how gun control doesn’t work.

In conclusion, incidents like the Parkland, Fla., shooting are tragic.

We the people and our elected officials can find ways to reduce the chances of guns getting into the wrong hands, but gun control or a ban of any kind will not be the answer. Statistics show the percentage of households in the United States that own firearms from 1972 to 2017.

In 2017, about 42 percent of U.S. households had at least one gun in possession. There is no reason why the majority of law-abiding gun owners, whatever their reason for owning a gun – hunting, competition or recreational purposes – should NOT have to pay the price for a small group of people willing to carry out violent and harmful acts on others.

It is obvious that no rational human being would commit heinous acts like we have seen being carried out in schools, military bases and movie theaters.

Those who support gun control do not understand a very simple fact: Guns don’t kill people – a gun is a tool – people kill other people.

Any gun owner would tell you they could load their gun and leave it on their porch and return to find it hasn’t killed anyone.

The Bastille Day attack in Nice, France, killed 86 people, wounded 434. That attack was carried out not by a gun, but by a box truck, but I haven’t seen any notion to ban box trucks.

When someone carries out an attack with a knife, we don’t blame the knife, cry and shout in the streets demanding knife control or a knife ban. There should be no difference with firearms.